This wasn’t how Joe Kelly drew it up.
Kelly is slated to open the season as a member of the Boston Red Sox’s starting rotation. It’s a funny reality for the 26-year-old, as he never really wanted to be a pitcher when he was younger.
Kelly fully expected to be an outfielder — the position he had played in high school — upon reporting to his first baseball practice at the University of California, Riverside, in 2006, according to the Providence Journal’s Brian MacPherson. But Kelly’s new coach insisted he try out pitching, which obviously led to big things.
“I said, ‘Yeah, why not? It looks pretty easy,’ ” Kelly recently told MacPherson at spring training in Fort Myers. “I threw it to the catcher as hard as I could. It ended up being a strike. They were like, ‘Can you do it again?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I can do it again.’ They were like, ‘All right, let me go back and get the radar gun.’ ”
Kelly’s coach at the time, Doug Smith, told MacPherson the right-hander threw 92 mph that day in the bullpen while wearing turf shoes. It was enough to convince him that Kelly’s days as an outfielder were over, even though the decision initially was met with some resistance.
“I didn’t want to do it, that’s for sure,” Kelly told MacPherson. “I wasn’t happy about it at first. No one is, when you’re a position player. You don’t want to pitch. It’s boring.”
Kelly evolved into the team’s closer. It was a challenge he soon embraced despite some preliminary boredom. Pitching never really appealed to Kelly until that point, even throughout high school, when he reportedly tossed a whopping seven innings.
“I was like, ‘I’m not pitching ever again because this is stupid,’ ” Kelly told MacPherson. “Everyone asked me to pitch in high school. I was like, ‘Nope. No, thanks.’ ”
The change certainly worked out for Kelly, who later was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the third round in 2009. There’s no telling whether his big league dream ever would have come to fruition if he stuck to his guns and continued to patrol center field.
Thumbnail photo via Peter Aiken/USA TODAY Sports Images
